NFL Week 10: Scores, odds, picks, top moments and everything to know

Your favorite article of the week is back and better than ever. Also, and more importantly, disrespectful blocks of the week is back. Last week I was out of town and away from my editing software, but I’m back home and we have an amazing video for you today highlighted by the even more amazing Quenton Nelson block that went viral on Twitter — and inexplicably earned him a fine.

But before that, let’s discuss some of the most impressive offensive line play from Week 10.

Let’s be clear. Helmet-to-helmet hits are bad and dangerous. But it seems like NFL officials have trouble getting on the same page about when it’s appropriate to issue a personal foul for the hit and when to throw the flag at all.

Take Thursday night’s Panthers-Steelers game for example. In the third quarter, Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger ran the ball for 18 yards, easily converting a first down and sliding around the Panthers’ 14-yard line.

22 NFL quarterbacks completed a game with a perfect passer rating from 1999 to 2017. And we’re not talking about wide receivers who throw a single pass that happens to go for a touchdown, or quarterbacks entering a game in garbage time. These 22 quarterbacks threw for a minimum of 15 passes and achieved a perfect passer rating of 158.3.

It’s already happened three times in 2018, accounting for 13.6 percent of all such occurrences since Pro Football Reference began tracking that data in 1999. It started in Week 4 with a spectacular Thursday night game from Jared Goff and the Rams against Kirk Cousins and the Vikings. Goff completed 26 of 33 passes for 465 yards, five touchdowns, and zero interceptions in a 33-26 win. Cousins also had a great game, but not a 158.3 passer rating like Goff.

Raise your hand if you thought the Monday night game between the Giants and the 49ers would be the most entertaining game of the week. After a slew of blowouts and double-digit margins of victory in Week 10, two of the worst teams gave us a barn burner to end the weekend.

Here are a few numbers that help paint the picture of the Giants’ 27-23 road win on Monday night.

The NFL is sticking with its plan to play the Monday Night Football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Giants, even with smoke from dangerous wildfires burning throughout California. The Camp Fire is about 250 miles northeast of Levi’s Stadium.

The fires are close enough to the stadium that smoke has diminished the air quality to the point that it’s considered an “unhealthy” level.

The Atlanta Falcons went into Cleveland on a three-game winning streak against the Browns, and came out with a heaping 28-16 loss that was never really close.

After the loss, on Atlanta’s 92.9 The Game, linebacker De’Vondre Campbell basically admitted what many of us have speculated for years — teams don’t take the Browns seriously going into the week:

A change of scenery can be good for the soul, and that certainly seems to be the case for Indianapolis Colts tight end Eric Ebron.

Ebron was the 10th overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions (Odell Beckham went 12th and Aaron Donald went 13th), but he never played like a top-10 pick during his time in Detroit. After totaling 2,070 yards in four seasons, he was released before signing with Indianapolis this offseason.

Aaron Donald has zero offensive stats in his career. And why would he? No player in the NFL terrorizes quarterbacks like Donald. Somehow, he’s even getting BETTER at that. The reigning — and likely back-to-back — Defensive Player of the Year set a Rams franchise record for a defensive tackle with 12.5 sacks so far this season. (Reminder: There are still six games left.)

The Rams also have the best running back in the NFL. Todd Gurley leads the league with 988 rushing yards and has scored a touchdown in 13 straight games. He is, as the kids would say back in 1994 when Gurley was born, da bomb.

It’s been an ugly week of football in the NFL. From Thursday through the end of the early games on Sunday, only one contest finished within a double-digit margin of victory. But there was one team that went above and beyond, the same team that first made Rex Ryan a head coach, chased away a grown man in a fireman’s hat and gave us the Butt Fumble.

In a week of terrible football, the New York Jets plumbed the depths of sports humiliation with a 41-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills.

Week 10 in the NFL didn’t cause the playoff picture to change much when it comes to who’s in and who’s out. But this week’s NFL outcomes did prompt a shift in the teams in the playoff hunt.

Additionally, the Steelers’ win over the Panthers and the Patriots’ loss to the Titans means there’s been a shakeup in the current AFC seeds. Here’s a look at the updated NFL playoff picture following Week 10.

We’re not going to tell you that November separates the pretenders from contenders. That’s corny, to paraphrase Jon Gruden. But it’s true the stakes get much higher. Every little screwup can become the difference between the playoffs in January or sitting at home. Every loss causes a team’s playoff chances to take a hit — in the Eagles’ case, from 70 percent to 35 percent.

It’s still football, though. Players are sometimes going to make a bad play and coaches are sometimes going to make the wrong call. And like any week, some stand out more than others.

A loss to the Philadelphia Eagles could’ve been enough to close the book on the Dallas Cowboys’ 2018 season. Instead, the Cowboys pulled out a desperately needed 27-20 road victory to stay in the NFC East race.

There’s still climbing to do — especially after Washington improved to 6-3 with a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — but Dallas is back in the mix at 4-5. The Cowboys have a real shot at catching Washington too if they play the way they did Sunday night.

The Tennessee Titans dominated just about every facet of their 34-10 win over the New England Patriots, and even did a bit of trolling along the way.

Titans head coach Mike Vrabel played linebacker for the Patriots for eight seasons, winning three Super Bowls along the way. So it probably wasn’t meant as disrespect when Vrabel hit his former coach, Bill Belichick, with a little gamesmanship Sunday.

The Patriots came into a Week 10 showdown with the Titans riding a six-game winning streak. They left Nashville with a humbling 34-10 loss that saw Tom Brady exit the game with more than seven minutes to play. Not due to injury, but rather to prevent it in a contest that was effectively over by halftime.

It was a wake-up call for New England and a statement win for a Titans team that’s vacillated from “contender” to “terrible” and back in 2018. And while it’s a disheartening loss for a Patriot team whose road to a third-straight Super Bowl appearance just got a few more potholes, it didn’t necessarily out the fatal flaws that could derail New England’s season.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers gave us a riddle to solve after their loss to Washington this week. Tampa Bay had 501 yards of offense, averaged 7.5 yards per play, converted 60 percent of their third downs ... and only finished with three points.

That seems just about impossible, but it makes a little more sense when you realize they had four turnovers today on their 10 possessions. Here’s how the Bucs managed to pull it off...

Let’s just get the stats out of the way to begin with, because Drew Brees is doing some ridiculous things and that’s why you’re here, right?

Through nine games, Brees has completed 77.3 (!!!) percent of his passes for 2,601 yards with 21 touchdowns and one interception. He’s on pace to smash the record for completion percentage in a season of 72 percent, set by none else than Brees last season.

The Raiders will continue to host the Chargers on Sunday in spite of concerns over the air quality in North California following wild fires that are still raging across the state.

Unless there is a major change in the next hour the Chargers and Raiders will hold to the scheduled 1:05 p.m. PT kickoff time, despite reports that smoke is heavy in the area. Players experienced some of the smoke on Thursday during practice — but fire conditions will make it even more difficult on Sunday.

Baker Mayfield was rolling against the Falcons. The Browns’ rookie quarterback had completed nine straight passes to start his day against Atlanta, leading Cleveland to a 7-3 lead in the process.

So, naturally, head coach Gregg Williams wanted to get the ball in his hands as much as possible. Even as a wide receiver.

The Saints won’t have the benefit of Dez Bryant on the field this season, but the team is still honoring him.

Bryant tore his achilles in his first practice after signing with the Saints last week, prompting numerous members of the team to say that they are remembering him while he recovers. So, when Mark Ingram muscled in for a touchdown in the first quarter against the Bengals on Sunday and dropped a familiar celebration on the Cincinnati crowd — Dez Bryant’s X.

If you’re a Kansas City Chiefs fan who has a lucky pregame ritual, don’t you dare change a thing. Just about everything is going well for the Chiefs in 2018, including the coin toss.

Through their first nine games of the year, the Chiefs were a perfect 9-0 on the coin toss. Five times they were the visiting team and called the toss correctly. Four times the team visiting Arrowhead Stadium called the toss incorrectly.

Just when you think Patrick Mahomes can do no wrong ... he continues to be absolutely perfect.

I’m not a Chiefs fan. I can honestly say that I have no particular affinity or hatred for the team — but something about this just feels right, and makes me all warm and happy. It’s awesome that the Chiefs are great again, Mahomes is a delight to watch on the field — and this jacket, man ... all the feels.

2017 was a magical season for the Eagles. They won the Super Bowl with a back up quarterback who also was named the game’s MVP. Think about that for a second. We see backup quarterbacks littered around the NFL who can barely keep an offense functional. Nick Foles was out here leading his team to a 41-33 win. The Eagles lost their left tackle, middle linebacker, special teams ace and their scat running back to injury, and none of it bothered Foles. They kept ticking along.

To sum up their 2017 season — “Everything went right”

The first thing that jumps out about the picks this week is just how much agreement there is among our panelists. There are a few reasons for that, and it impacts how we’re picking the game this week.

Maybe that’s a reflection of how one-sided the matchups are this week, something that tends to happen as we get into the second half of the season and teams start to reveal who they are. Along those lines, it suggests too how a handful of teams have come to dominate the standings. The Chiefs, Patriots, Rams, Saints, and even the Chargers are tough for anyone to beat to right now, except when these top-tier teams play each other, like last week’s Saints’ win over the Rams.

Week 10 in the NFL started off with the Pittsburgh Steelers dominating the Carolina Panthers on Thursday Night Football. That was one of only two games this week in which both teams enter the matchup with winning records. The other comes this afternoon when the Cincinnati Bengals play host to the New Orleans Saints.

The Steelers made the Panthers look silly and we wouldn’t be all that surprised to see the Saints do the same to the Bengals. With that said, this is an important game for Cincinnati as they need to play catch up with the Steelers in the AFC North. Here are six games in Week 10 that could have the biggest impact on the remainder of the 2018 season.

Update: Two days after signing with the Saints, Dez Bryant is believed to have torn his Achilles. What a brutal turn of events.

Dez Bryant waited for the right opportunity after being released by the Cowboys this offseason. On Wednesday he found it — with the NFC’s top team.